Article 1 : Pressure points

Why in News: Venezuela is witnessing an escalation of U.S. intervention that has sparked accusations of overt imperialism.

Key Details:

• Direct coercive actions
  • Ordering the abduction of a sitting head of state.
  • Imposing a naval blockade on a sovereign nation.
• Political endorsement
  • U.S. backing of Delcy Rodríguez rather than the opposition.
  • This does not reduce the criminality of the acts; instead, it clarifies their real aim.
• Underlying objective
  • The focus is not democracy or narcotics control, but command over Venezuela’s oil resources.

Key Aspects:

• Seeming contradiction, clear logic
  • The U.S. seeks to retain the Bolivarian regime while simultaneously strangling Venezuela’s economic sovereignty.
  • This avoids the costs of military occupation and the chaos of regime change.
• Lessons from Iraq
  • Experience in Iraq showed that dismantling state structures fuels insurgency and instability.
  • Hence, Washington prefers to capture existing institutions rather than destroy them.
• Neocolonial control
  • The strategy preserves the form of statehood while exercising real external control—a modern version of neocolonialism.
• Rodríguez’s dilemma
  • The Bolivarian movement was founded on resisting U.S. domination of Venezuelan resources.
  • A decade of sanctions has weakened the economy, forcing negotiations with the same power that abducted her predecessor.
  • Limited compliance—oil trade concessions and release of political prisoners—is framed as a “peace gesture”.
  • Full surrender of sovereignty would alienate the Chavista base sustaining her government.
• Pressure–instability paradox
  • The more Washington presses Caracas, the more it risks creating the instability it claims to want to prevent.

Way Forward

• Rethink coercive engagement
  • U.S. sanctions devastated Venezuela’s economy and triggered the migration crisis later used to justify intervention.
  • Offering relief only in exchange for exclusive American control over resources amounts to extortion, not diplomacy.
• Restore principled internationalism
  • When Russia violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, the world responded with condemnation and sanctions.
  • Similar consistency is required here to defend international norms.
• Global implications
  • The so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’ threatens not just Venezuela but the foundations of the international order.
  • If left unchallenged, no nation in the Global South can consider itself secure.

Conclusion

In Venezuela, U.S. actions under Donald Trump represent a coercive quest for resource control, not reform. By undermining sovereignty through sanctions and pressure, Washington risks deepening instability and eroding global norms. If such neocolonial practices go unchecked, the credibility of international law and the security of the Global South will be gravely weakened.